Winnipeg Ghosts: Lizzie Loves Her Victorian Kitchen

The following report was sent into our website by Tim on Aug 14, 2014:

“I moved into an old Folk Victorian home in Osborne Village on June 15th, 2003 with my cat Mila. It was a home which needed considerable renovations done to it but the location and price was ideal. Little did I know that I was not the only resident in the home.

The very next morning I cooked myself breakfast, turned on the old, yellow stove and watched my omelette. All of a sudden, the fridge door swung open and hit me in the back. I turned, closed it and thought to myself that the floor must be uneven. I suddenly realized that my omelette stopped cooking. The element had been turned off! I turned it back on and as I did, the freezer door of the fridge swung open. Oh, oh! I suddenly realized I was not alone. I went off to work and came home to find the microwave door was wide open.

The next morning, as I made my breakfast, all of a sudden my cat Mila hissed and hissed while staring above my fridge for five minutes! She had never done this before in her 20 years with me! For a split second, I thought I saw a hand pet down her back while she was hissing continually staring upwards above the fridge.

The following 3 years were constant phenomenon in my home although mostly all circled around the kitchen. I would wake in the morning frequently to find all the lights turned on despite the regular check before bed which included turning off all lights, checking the locks of the entry doors and setting the security system.

Every time I would vacuum, regardless of whether it was the shop vac, the central vac or the Electrolux vacuum, as I passed through the kitchen, the vacuums would be turned off. Obviously ‘she’ did not like the noise one bit.

One evening, I was busy putsying around the kitchen area putting this away, emptying some boxes and generally trying to make the house more liveable, I found myself thinking of various derivatives of the name ‘Elizabeth’. I became conscious of this and wondered why on earth would I be thinking of all those abbreviations. The following day, I received in the mail from Land Titles the names of the past owners and their mortgage copies. One name popped out like a neon sign! It was the name “Elizabeth Hill”, one of the longest owners of the home along with her husband Edgar. I later found out that she preferred the name “Lizzie” and both her and her husband had died in the home. He died in the 30’s and she died in the mid 50’s. She was a house ‘frau’ – kind of woman who loved her baking, cooking and canning and would spend much of her time around the kitchen which explained the constant phenomenon there.

in 2005, I went on a Ghost Tour of Winnipeg and the tour guide and I spoke at the end of the tour. I told him my home was haunted and he was all too keen to come over and check out the premises. He brought his wife along with an amplitude of equipment and wandered around the home with his electromagnetic meters and other paraphernalia. His wife and I chatted while he wandered all three floors, then came back and said “I can’t seem to find anything here”. He then showed me how the electromagnetic meter moved from 0 to 5 when held close to the plug outlets. I told him that I can’t possibly be crazy, I had had constant activity daily from her. He wandered around again only to shortly proclaim “I’ve got a live AND strong one!!!” I stood behind him and the electromagnetic meter wasn’t going 0 – 5, it was jumping from 180 – 220 back and forth. He followed her up to the stairway and then she disappeared. She reappeared a second time and then vanished for good.

Several people who saw her said she was a little, old lady with curly white hair who also had dementia so she had no clue that she had passed on. Lizzie’s phenomenon continued for about a year after that and then subsided. I kept encouraging her to ‘go to the light’ so she must have finally listened.”